Proposal to organize Control Panel Features into Categories
(originally introduced by Mike Finko, 'mikeua')
Purpose
(open for discussion)
- Difficulty in using the current Control Panel due to so many widely varying types of Features which are all uncategorized, e.g. unstructured
- Configurations can be enabled/disabled in multiple locations, adding to this confusion
- Difficulty in understanding the 'level of importance' of individual Features
- Difficulty in understanding 'what Tiki does' or 'where do I start' for new users due to the unstructured nature of the Control Panels
Goals
(open for discussion)
- Increase Control Panels ease of use for new users as well as long time users of Tiki
- Categorize, e.g. group, all Features for easier 'on-boarding' of new users
- Allow for a faster learning curve for new users and higher retention rates of new users
- Increase future uniformity when adding new Features
- Create a central focus for Tiki on 'Core Modules' (as roughly stated here: https://info.tiki.org/Features) to improve marketability of Tiki as a product
Notes
- I know we discussed this before (most likely a TRM) but could not find any info about this on the Dev or Community sites - if I missed it somewere, we can combine the pages.
- It was designed for 'full screen width' so doesn't look so great, here, sorry. Toggle the right module to 'Closed' and it will make viewing easier
- in any case, the Control Panel page looks custom coded page, so the html/css specialist that will be doing the actual re-vamp can make sure it looks perfect
- Icon - WebServices: since it is a 'cog' like General, I changed it to 'cloud-upload', since it involves the 'cloud', there is no 'cloud-upload-download' yet, and a Google search does not seem to indicate consensus, and no specific symbol in Font Awesome
- Icons Polls and Video: both slightly different, that's the closest I could find on Font Awesome
- I believe I included all the current Features, maybe only some experimental or deprecated ones are left out, two that I know I left out:
- Image Galleries - since this is listed as 'deprecated', I recommend we do not have the icon in the Control Panel as this just confuses users
- FAQ - in the 'Warning' it says "...there has been discussion about retiring this feature..." so let's retire it. Or, add it to the 'Deprecated' filter (e.g. Basic, Advanced, Experimental, etc.)
- I categorized them to the best of my abilities, I'm sure I overlooked a lot of things, please give your feedback for improvement.
- although the last few (Integration, Security, Miscellaneous) don't have many in them, my thinking was to leave room for expansion.
- After feedback and general consensus, we will need to update this page https://doc.tiki.org/Admin-Home
- we will need to limit the time for feedback, it cannot be 'forever' as no feedback should be considered a vote of 'approval'
There was a long and interesting discussion during the February 2021 TRM (see for more details: https://tiki.org/Roundtable-Meeting-2021-02)
In conclusion we agreed that if the interface was to be improved Tiki has most of the components needed to do (or start) it smoothly.
- First step ( luciash d' being 🧙 , Bernard Sfez / Tiki Specialist , Katy, ...)
In Tiki we already have an "Admin theme" feature that make it easy to create a definitive solution or a proof of concept quickly and it is totally optional.
A future install option in Tiki was also mentioned (for admin choose Tiki classic theme or Tiki modern admin (naming?) )
- The admin-navbar stays always visible at the top
- Removal of the admin anchors (small icons) from the top of the admin-include files
- Addition of a sliding left col (based on the existing left col behavior) That will display all the main feature activated (based on the actual)
It was suggested this sliding menu to be always accessible (outside admins pages) for admins (optional)- Other links to be displayed
- Home (dashboard)
- Add features (to access the disabled features)
- Users management
- Users
- Groups
- Permissions (?)
- ....
- System
- Logs (tiki, actions)
- Tiki-check
- Security
- Performance
- ....
- Other links to be displayed
- Dashboard / New Home for admin
Using existing data we have:- At glance (Tiki statistics)
- How many pages
- Files
- Items
- Last admin log (5 last users ?)
- ...
- Activity, last added content
- Get started (conditional)
- TBD (newbee tips closable for ever)
- Tiki communication
- Version, updates
- Important communication from TCommunity
Notes: - At glance (Tiki statistics)
- This area should be customisable with a "reset page" button
- Some charts will be nice
- Modules page need some work to adapt
- Second step
TBD once the first step is done
- Third step
TBD once the first step is done
Comparison (non-Tiki Admin Pages)
- We should consider how cPanel structured their 'Dashboard' due to the similarity of having a significant amount of Features - although it is a 'proprietary' software, it is generally considered a highly successful project. Three screenshots because it has so many Features:
- Open Project (https://docs.openproject.org/system-admin-guide/) they are smaller, limited to 'project management' so only have 17 Features - yet they have a left side panel that assists in navigation:
Proposal
Enhanced Grid Display
This is a proposal to keep the admin icons in the grid so they are in a compact display, but to organize them, add a "header" for each section, and use color to differentiate the sections. This organization seems pretty good to me , but some things could be moved around. I used the standard Bootstrap button classes, so the effectiveness depends on the theme. Some themes could be improved in this regard.
Admin Panel-top Icons
The icons at the top of the admin pages that display without labels that correspond to the above reorganization would look something like this:
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